


sandwiches.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fallen Castiel, M/M, Post "Sacrifice", Sandwiches, post 8x23
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 03:05:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean communicates in sandwiches these days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sandwiches.

_“There is an art to the business of making sandwiches which it is given to few ever to find the time to explore in depth. It is a simple task, but the opportunities for satisfaction are many and profound.” ― Douglas Adams_

_  
_

Dean communicates in sandwiches these days. 

There’s something deeply satisfying about slapping together a sandwich on a plate and fixing it on a plate for someone else.  There’s no possible miscommunication in a simple exchange of food, he figures.  You can’t fuck things up by handing someone a grilled cheese sandwich, not ever.

Sandwiches say the all things he can’t, like  _I fucking love you, you dick,_  and  _You’re sick and it’s scaring me to death.  Eat a goddamned turkey-on-rye so I can feel like I’m helping._

A bacon-lettuce-tomato says  _You done good, buddy._ A ham-and-cheese says  _I’m not going to fucking hug you or anything, but you look like you could use some cheering up._ The classic peanut butter and jelly says  _You pissed me the fuck off today, pal, but you’re still family._

Dean doesn’t know what to say.  He never knows what to say.  It’s become a way of life, saying the wrong thing.  Cas is standing there at the door, bloodied and battered round and dripping rainwater from his sleeves and hair, and all Dean can say to him is, "You made me ruin dinner."

 

—

While the Men of Letters might  _technically_ have built the bunker before the advent of smoke detectors, Dean knows better: those dudes had access to either some seriously powerful voodoo, or else top-level secret, government-sponsored scientific advancements.  He’s fighting a fire in the oven, cursing at the top of his lungs and being drowned out by what sounds like an air raid siren. 

"Dean," Sam’s shouting over the sound of the sirens.  "Dean, just leave it, we can have dinner later.  This is  _important_. Cas-"  

But the meatloaf’s turning black and the kitchen’s gone gray and choking with smoke and no matter how hard he flaps a kitchen towel in any direction, the sirens won’t go off.  Bullshit detectors, Sam’s taken to calling them.  They’ve had all their fights in the kitchen recently, and when Dean’s upset he can’t pay attention to the egg timer or the oven’s temperature.

Cas is hovering in the door, dripping all over the the cement floors.  It’s funny that Dean can hear the sound of rainwater hitting the floor despite the sirens.  It’s a quiet deluge of cold wet drops.  Cas isn’t saying a word, but his eyes don’t stop following Dean as he moves around the kitchen. 

“Just leave it, Dean," Sam says again. “We can eat something else. We can have sandwiches later or something.  No one’s hungry right now," he adds.  

His calm acceptance of the prospects of not having dinner makes Dean’s hackles rise.  He pulls the charred meatloaf out of the oven and throws the pan with deliberate force on top of the range.  

He glares at Cas accusingly.  "This," Dean says clearly, so that there can be no mistake, “is all your fault."

— 

Dean has a secret: He likes cooking.  Not enough to get worked up about it, but preparing food is one of those necessary task he finds calming and fulfilling, something that always needs doing.  It’s also more fun than cleaning the bathroom, which has become Sam’s chore by default.  

He makes Sam a bacon-lettuce-tomato.  He makes himself a ham-and-cheese.  He boils some vegetables, makes a box of instant mashed potatoes, smothering the almost-liquid potatoes in butter and sour cream, cuts the ruined pieces off the charred meatloaf and shoves a plate of food forcefully in Cas’s direction.  

He’s not sure what giving someone meatloaf means just yet.  He’s caught between a primal instinct to put some meat on Cas’s bones and a certain spiteful desire to see him choke on its blackened crusts. 

But he thinks Cas gets the message. Cas looks at Sam’s sandwich, then stares down at the charred meatloaf morosely.  He picks up his fork and begins eating.

Dean eats his sandwich and glares at him from across the table.

Cas eats the meatloaf too fast.  He does that now, Dean supposes, shoveling food in his mouth and wiping his mouth with his sleeve.  No table manners whatsoever.  He’s been living like a hobo for the past three weeks. Dean doesn’t really have any idea what he’s been eating, but he doubts it was served hot and prepared with self-righteous indignation and furious love.

Cas looks like he could use a good home-cooked meal. Dean thinks this is probably his first home-cooked meal, ever.  The first dinner someone’s ever cooked just for him.  This is certainly his first brush with vegetables, if the way he turns up his nose at the asparagus is anything to go by. 

Cas doesn’t get a sandwich, because he doesn’t fucking deserve one after what he’s put Dean through.  He doesn’t get a steak dinner, because this isn’t a fucking birthday celebration.  Cas is dripping wet and mournful but alive, and so he gets meatloaf.

—

Dean’s always liked to think of himself as a fighter, someone who stays and battles on through the carnage ‘til he’s the only one left standing.  He’s not the kind of guy who runs away at the first sign of trouble.  But here he is anyway, hiding away in the kitchen.

He’ll never admit it, probably, but he generally feels safe in a kitchen.  For one thing, if you’re going to barricade yourself in any room of the house, it might as well be the room with the fridge, and the boxes of Morton’s salt in the pantry.  And there’s something profoundly reassuring about those wickedly sharp knives laid out on the counters.

He’s spent a fair amount of time in the bunker’s kitchen lately, aggressively not-hiding from Cas.

Cas came back, and Dean hasn’t been able to say a goddamned word to him ever since.

"You’re angry," Cas offers at last.  He’s standing in the corner between the counter and the refrigerator, keeping out of Dean’s way but still being silent and hunched and a constant, intrusive source of quiet sadness and awkward apology. He’s wearing Dean’s blue flannel shirt.  That fact doesn’t make Dean less mad.

"I get to be angry," Dean says at last.  

Cas hunches in on himself.  "I know," he says.

Dean feels a sudden urge to hack at something until it’s lying bloodless and mortally wounded at his feet.  He goes grabs a bag of onions and hides behind the kitchen knife, hacking away at the onions like they’re prey.  He thinks that if Cas were still an angel, he’d stab him in the heart again, just because he could.  If he were still an angel, Cas would be fine.  

Dean attacks the onions instead.

He feels Cas move to stand next to him, almost pressing against his side.  He feels himself relent a little, and that doesn’t help.   

"If you’re going to stand there and  _hover_ , then make yourself useful," he snaps, and Cas silently takes up a knife and an onion.

They stand side-by-side in the kitchen, chopping at onions for a while.  Peel off the skins, slice off the tops, dice at will.  

 "Oh," Cas says, and Dean risks a glance at him.  Cas has managed to cut his finger.  He’s bleeding all over his plate of chopped onions. He reaches across the counter and hands Cas a napkin.

Cas carefully wraps up his finger and goes back to chopping onions. The plate of onions he was working on is now a total loss, so Cas starts over.  Peel off the skins, slice off the tops, dice at will.

But Dean can’t move.  He’s watching the blood pool in the middle of the plate, congealing on the onions.

He hasn’t cried over Cas, not once. It’s a measure of how fucked up things are between them that Dean can’t even cry when his best friend is dead.  He couldn’t cry as he watched Cas sink under the black water of that reservoir.  He couldn’t cry when he watches the stars fall out of the sky.  He couldn’t cry afterward, either.  There was nothing left to cry about.  Just something hot and suffocating choking in his throat that no amount of coughing could get rid off.  

He feels like that now.  He’s felt like that for the past three weeks.  

"Dean."  He feels a hand on his shoulder, and looks over.  Cas looks tense and worried.  "You’re crying," Cas says slowly.  Like he thinks this might be a reasonable hypothesis, even though he’s not entirely sure what’s going on.  Despite the fact that all signs are pointing in that direction. "Are you hurt?"  

Cas touches his cheek, and it’s not until Dean feels his hand on his face that he can feel the dampness on his skin.  He bats away Cas’s hand and scrubs at his face with his sleeve.

"No, I’m not," Dean says.  "It’s just the onions.  It happens sometimes.  It’s nothing, Cas."  

He feels confident in saying this.  Of course it’s only the onions.  Why wouldn’t it be only the onions? It’s not like he’s been thinking for weeks now that Cas was dead, dead on the side of a road somewhere  or lost in a forest, or beaten, tortured, abused in a dungeon, and now Cas is standing right here beside him, alive and unharmed and apparently starving, if the way he’d been choking down the charred remains of the meatloaf last night is anything to go by.

"Oh," Cas says.  He touches his own cheek. “I think the onions are affecting me, too."  He’s got tears streaming down his face, and snot beginning to trickle out of his nose.  It’s pretty gross.

Cas is alive. Cas is okay, except for nicking his finger.  Cas is fine, and he’s here, and Dean’s furious with him.

No, he’s not crying, he can say with certainty.  Just cutting onions.  

Dean takes another napkin and wipes Cas’s nose.  Cas stands still and lets him do it.  He offers Dean a small, sheepish sort of smile, and Dean feels more tears leak out of his eyes.

He can’t blame the onions.  

He doesn’t cry over Cas, dead.  He’s crying over Cas, living.  Safe and sound, and here with Dean.

"What are we making?" Cas asks.  He’s squinting through the tears.  

Dean stares.  Blood and tears, both in the same day.  It’s too much for him to handle.  "Sandwiches," he says eventually.

—

Cas picks the crust off his sandwich. Then the pickles.  Then the ham.  When he’s done, all that’s left is mayo, paprika  and onions.  Cas eats it even though it makes his eyes water.

He looks up at Dean.  "You’re still crying," he observes.

"Yeah, well…." The tears might not be about Cas, after all. It still might just be the onions.  He really can’t tell.

Cas takes another bite of the sandwich, then offers him the rest, and that tight, aching feeling still lodged in the back of his throat has nothing to do with the onions. 


End file.
